the nose knows

by Aditya Bhatia

The thing is, is that I never really saw an issue with white lies. As a child they told me Pinocchio was about the perils of lying when in reality it’s about the perils of listening to strangers. The growing nose sticks in the mind because, well, what an image! But that’s one single scene in an eighty-minute package. The rest of it has nothing to do with telling untruths.

My girlfriend told me that I’m the children’s section of the bookstore when it comes to ease of being able to read. Not even like, chapter book kid section: picture books. Monosyllabic concepts meant for the feeblest of minds. But I’ve always thought that my ability to deceive was, if not at the level of like Elmyr de Hory then at least at the level of let’s say, Peter Campbell. It worked occasionally for him, didn’t it?

A month or so ago I decided to donate to the ACLU. Or, more accurately, I was cornered by a man on the corner whose placement impeded my arriving at dinner. My stomach was turning inside-out, and I could see my girlfriend getting impatient, but I have an issue with simply saying, “Not interested.” I get caught up in the sale. Once, while in Panama City, a pimple-faced ginger kid in an athletic material polo cornered us while we sauntered, post-beach, to get some ice cream, and began proselytizing about the virtues of time shares. I’m not an idiot: I understand that those things are garbage. But there was something that prevented me from breaking away from the pitch, some kind of invisible hand that held me there, forcing me to smile and nod; if my voice of reason wasn’t standing there next to me, I would’ve been put in a position where I was paying what would accumulate into a metric fuck-ton to be able to spend eleven days in Aspen, Colorado once a year, not even during peak skiing season. I was lucky then, but when it came to the ACLU representative, smiling broadly asking me, “Don’t you care about the injustices befalling your fellow Americans?” I wasn’t able to simply walk away. I pledged twenty-five dollars a month and immediately tasted bile but grinned through his thanks and his insistence that I was one of the good ones who allowed the better ones to stand strong against the worst ones. After that, dinner was disappointing.

It took a few days of calling to get them on the phone days before automatic renewal, and once I did, I let them know that my financial situation had changed, that I was no longer gainfully employed, and that I couldn’t afford to continue on with the payments even though I would love to. Now this was a lie. I am still employed. And maybe somewhere I’m happy that I gave the money, but I have no intention of beginning again. And the lady on the other end of the line? There’s no way she clued into that.

Similarly, about two months ago I knew I wanted to take a Friday off and give myself a long weekend, so I began on Monday to complain about being slightly under the weather but with an optimism that, as the week progressed, I would best it. This was spoken in front of my boss so that the seed of the idea was planted well before I needed to pull the actual trigger. By Wednesday I was standing in the bathroom staring at myself in the mirror without blinking waiting for my eyes to turn red so that, once I walked into the main office, she’d be able to notice herself how bloodshot my eyes are and remember that two days prior I was complaining about impending illness and of her own volition ask, “Hey, are you feeling okay?” By constructing the façade, I provided another the ability to prove to me and themselves that they’re someone of good character. Not only is the lie a harmless act in this situation, it’s actually a selfless one.

My girlfriend says that I have no control over it anymore. She says I lie out of compulsion and not out of need and that, in her opinion, there’s never a need; to speak truthfully, even and especially when one doesn’t want to, we not only enrich ourselves but gain the respect of those we’re speaking to. She says I make a fool of myself every time I concoct some cockamamy excuse for something or another. She says they see right through me and see me as some kind of jester, as some kind craven little child who fears nothing. I ask her if I fear nothing doesn’t that make me brave. She says I know that’s not what she meant.

She says I’ve never convinced anyone of anything in my life. When I told her that she said that she said she said no such thing; she said I was making things up, as usual.

And it’s not that I can’t see that I’m being ridiculous every once in a while. I’d drank at a show one night and I’d driven home and she smelled it on my breath, and I said I only had water and even as the words spewed out I knew that they were lame, that they were impossible to swallow. Or the time I’d eaten a cashew when I’d gone to get her water and when I came back in the room my swallow was finishing and she said, “What did you eat?” and I said, “Nothing.” I understand that instances like these only serve to sow discord between us and place me in positions difficult to come back from. Right now I can still catch the edge of the pit if I jump, but soon I won’t even be able to do that. I haven’t begun planning for that eventuality.

My brother co-owns a business. They put on events; screenings of old movies and table reads of fan favorites with local talent and amateur nights where people show off their talents. Recently, my brother and his producing partner set up a fundraiser for a film because, in the event they helped enough money get raised, full credits on this promising little indie would be given. The fundraiser was a success, and they were promised executive producer status, but the film became a debacle. The director, the type of guy people don’t really want to warn you about because there’s no real evidence that he’s more than simply a piece of shit, proved those hesitations misguided. In watching him work they were presented with real evidence that his shittery was far beyond what most expected. People were hired and fired at head-spinning rates and pay they were promised was withheld on the pretense of the work being subpar, and the children on set complained of fatigue but weren’t given breaks the way they needed to be, and murmurs of some of the guys who hung around being criminals with records began to arise, though nothing concrete materialized, but at one point there was talk that maybe a private investigator should be brought in to look into it just so that they (my brother and his partner) could extricate themselves from the thing before things got too bad. Ultimately, they were iced out, on the same shoddy work pretense as the others, but this my brother said was ultimately probably for the best because, he’s positive, there’s still a shoe or two left to drop. But, all of this to say, the initial success of the fundraiser was predicated upon a white lie, because they had a burger stand my brother ran and they did not have permits to cook and sell food like that. The possible fallout of this action was definitely a worry, but ultimately it worked out, and they were all slightly richer than when they began the day. So, when at the last minute my brother asked me if I would run a little food stall at a block party they were planning, I said yes.

My girlfriend told me to go through proper channels and make sure that everything I was doing was above board and the truth is I did try to make sure I had the requisite permits, but when I looked into it the time it would take to receive those permits was far too long: the block party was imminent. So, I decided to do it the way my brother had, but safer, because I wasn’t cooking anything raw. My girlfriend asked me if I got the permits and I told her I had and she looked me in the face and squinched her eyes and threw up her hands and said, “Why do I even try with you?” and left the room. That was a few hours ago.

The event was being held in a warehouse that had once been used for the construction of fighter jets during World War 2 but had more or less been abandoned and only been used as an event venue once actual productivity was no longer a concern. They’d set up a makeshift area that could only generously be called a stage for the bands that were going to perform, another area for picture taking, a large bar that their buddy Wilson was manning, several merch tables, and there by the entrance were the food vendors, which included me. I’d borrowed tables and a tent and felt fear lighting the Sterno underneath my wares, but remembered it was like sourdough—alive and aware of you—and so I tamped down the voice telling me I was going to get third degreed and just went ahead and shoved the lighter onto the top of the can and was relieved when nothing bad happened.

The first band wasn’t really a band; they were a collective. Their frontman, Holt Hudson, was the only official member and everyone else was part of the “Rabble”, the constantly shifting and growing number of collaborators he’d say were technically in without being in. He was up to twenty-five who were part of the “Rabble”; six, including him, were at the event. Valentine’s Day had come and gone, but they’d missed out on the Valentine show they had been scheduled for, so they were working through the set they’d prepared for that show, which only consisted of covers of guys like Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and Lorenz Hart, but rethought as indie pop anthems.

Liquor flowed and decibel level grew and hunger began to set in and suddenly all of us were busy. I’d decided on street foods from around the world: momos and samosas and arepas and scallion pancakes. I’d gone out to various grocers who sold each in bulk at dirt cheap prices and had stocked up and marked up each item to the point that I was charging four maybe five hundred percent more than what I’d paid. I filled plates and my phone buzzed with CashApp notifications and within two hours I’d nearly broken even on everything I’d acquired for the day.

Peak gave way to valley, and I had a minute to breath, and I sipped on a Coca-Cola mint julep and listened as the next act, Kaiser Swami, started in on their set. I was entranced. Then I wasn’t. A scuzzy individual, ethnically ambiguous, had begun to look at my menu and I waited for him to make a decision. He looked away from the menu with a smile.

“How are you bhai?”

Taken aback by the Hindi, “I’m fine.”

“Cool party.”

“Yeah, super cool.”

“You’re from India?”

“I am.”

“Excellent.”

“Are you?”

“Me? No hermano, I’m from all over.”

“Oh, cool.”

“Been here since Oh-Five.”

“That’s great.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“You were born here?”

“Oh, no, I wasn’t. My parents and I moved here when I was like, one.”

“How did they get into the country?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did they have a Visa?”

“Yeah, my dad had a Work Visa.”

“Awesome. Don’t want to come in illegally.”

“Sure.”

“Do you know anyone who’s ever done that?”

“Come into the country illegally?”

“Yeah.”

“Can’t say that I do.”

“No doubt, no doubt. So, do you do this a lot? Run a food stand?”

“Nah, this is my first time actually. Favor to my brother.”

“Is he here?”

“Yeah, he’s here somewhere.”

“What’s his name?”

“Do you think you’d know him?”

“Ah, nah man, you know, I’m new to town and heard about this and thought it would be cool, so I’m just like, trying to make friends, you dig?”

“Sure.”

“You know what you’re doing is really dope.”

“The food stand?”

“Yeah. Doing this is like, my dream. What all goes into it?”

“I mean, just getting your food together and the tables and stuff to serve in.”

“I mean like, government stuff. You need anything like that?”

“Yeah, you have to apply for a temporary food service permit if you want to do stuff like this.”

“Nice, and you have one of those?”

I looked at him in the eyes, “Yeah, I got my permit.”

He looked back at me, “That’s great. That’s awesome. Shit, I don’t know. I feel like even if I didn’t have one I would try to make this work, you know? No risk, no reward. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“I don’t know. I don’t like to chance things like that.”

“Yeah, but like, all I’m saying is, if you really love something and want to do something then you should just go for it, right?”

“I mean, I think you should try to do things the right way when possible.”

“Like you have?”

“Yeah. Like I have.”

“No doubt, no doubt. But I’m just saying, you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes, right?”

“I guess maybe sometimes.”

“No doubt, no doubt. Yeah, so, which thing on the menu do you recommend?”

My throat felt dry, “I kind of like all of them equally.”

“Gosh, that makes it so hard. Maybe I’ll take a scallion pancake.”

I put the pancake on the paper plate and handed it to him. “That’ll be six dollars.” He pulled out a wad of bills in a clip.

“I actually only take CashApp. I don’t have change for cash.”  “That’s okay,” he said, peeling out two bills, “I have exact cash.”

I took the bills. My hands were clammy; I worried they were shaking.

“Merci dude. Arigato lad.”

He disappeared into the crowd. I watched the bodies shuffle around the room and my ears had begun to feel as though within them something insectile roamed. My brother emerged from the throng and came up and hugged me. He handed me a Topo Chico and we sat and sipped for a minute before I relayed what had happened. “That’s weird,” he said when I finished. “Do you think it’ll be okay?” I asked. “Yeah, I’m sure everything will be fine,” he said.

I packed up the car, and I drove through the city, congested as usual, without any music playing, watching the structures slowly fade away as I inched along the highway. I got to my apartment complex, and I parked in my usual spot and, as I walked to the door, I noticed a beatup old Lincoln Continental that I’d never seen before. The windows were tinted and the license plate had been taken off, and I stared for a moment before going inside and locking the front door with both the regular lock and the deadbolt.

My girlfriend had showered and had a facemask on and sat in bed watching short form videos on her phone and I gave her a kiss and began washing the day off of myself and she asked, “How did it go?” to which I said, “It was alright,” to which she replied, “You sound weird, is something wrong?” and like an idiot I said, “No, everything’s fine.”

Photo of Aditya Bhatia

BIO: Aditya Bhatia is a writer/filmmaker from Atlanta, Georgia. His work can be found in publications such as Don't Submit, ExPat Press, Eulogy Press, Whiskey Tit Journal, and A Thin Slice Of Anxiety.